CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Does Elon Musk Hate Cops?

Riot police about to provoke a riot on the streets of Seattle. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

I have seen the police at their best and at their worst. The worst was when two New York cops tried to frame me for disorderly conduct after they overheard me accusing them of taking bribes. The one guy punched me after piling me into a police car and pushing me into the 9th precinct, where, in the 1960s, Blacks got beaten up a lot. That afternoon, he came to my cell. Unlike the crazy person he was when he arrested me, he was polite. He said if I pleaded guilty, I would only have to spend a weekend at the notorious Rikers Island. Unlike Blacks who couldn’t afford bail, I had resources. I got a lawyer who saw to it that I wouldn’t spend one day in jail, nor did I pay a fine. As I started for home from the court, where the Blacks and browns in the courtroom encouraged my testimony–they knew the deal–I noticed that smirks on the faces of the two cops who arrested me had disappeared.

Now that my neighborhood has been gentrified, I’m seeing the police at their best. When this was a ninety-five percent Black neighborhood with regular shootouts between drug dealers, you’d call the........

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